In recent years, much attention has been paid to the reduction of rollover in motor vehicles, especially in larger vehicles such as sport-utility vehicles (SUV's) which have a relatively high center of gravity. These vehicles may experience friction induced rollover conditions, in which the vehicle can rollover in response to friction forces acting on the vehicle tires without striking an obstacle.
Vehicle rollover is caused by exceeding the critical roll angle for a particular vehicle. The roll angle is the function of the suspension of the vehicle, the vehicle's loading condition and other vehicle characteristics and dynamic conditions. Existing rollover protection systems employ some form of a predictive means in an attempt to predict rollover and therefore prevent the same through corrective action such as vehicle braking, engine throttling or steering intervention. For example, many systems employ a roll rate sensor which directly measures the roll rate of the vehicle. Unfortunately, such roll rate sensors are expensive due to their complicated nature. Further, reliance only on the roll rate may result in reduced precision when evaluating rollover tendencies. Accordingly, there exists a need to provide a rollover protection system and method which improves the precision in predicting and protecting against rollover while eliminating the need for a costly roll rate sensor.